RMS on SCO, Distributions, DRM 711
Letter writes "Open for Business has an interview with GNU founder and free software zealot Richard M. Stallman (RMS) discussing the SCO situation, the single RMS-approved free Linux distribution and DRM in the Linux kernel. RMS also describes non-free software as a 'predatory social system that keeps people in a state of domination and division.'"
Debian not recommended (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:5, Insightful)
Debian are very pedantic about free and non-free. Probably just the right balance in their attitude, as they still allow non-free to be download easily. RMS is just ridiculously over-the-top, and should wake up and smell th coffee.
su with wheel group (Score:5, Insightful)
At least RMS is consistent (Score:5, Insightful)
Like any other outspoken issue-perfectionist, this grates on those who are less tough about that issue. But make no bones about it, he would be less respected in the end if he compromised.
So be it.
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS promotes his views too strongly. (Score:5, Insightful)
He refuses to have anything to do with anyone who even has the slightest relationship with a non-free program. In effect he and his cohorts are effective enforcing their beliefs on others or cutting them completely off from their organization.
How can you promote "free software" when you don't promote the "freedom to choose". Personally I think a person or company should be allowed to use free as well as non-free software together without reprimand from RMS and his organization.
It's better to use some free software then no free software, and RMS is effectively limiting his friends and support by enforcing his views on them. Maybe he needs to learn to respect that some people might want to go down a middle ground, and the results of doing that can be great neverless. For example, OS X, a brilliant combination of free as well as proprietary software.
Non-free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does RMS even understand physics? It takes "work" to change random states of bits into useful tools and information. Work doesn't come free. Working a material good out of rock, wood, sand, etc, and working bits out of random noise, turns out to be equivalent.
People who do "work" probably are more deserving of the prizes. The betterment of one's self should always be our higher goal. Be contructive, not destructive. Lend a helping hand to those who are trying, but don't offer any favors to those who are not. In the end, everyone gets their just rewards.
Just my 2 cents.
Re:At least RMS is consistent (Score:2, Insightful)
Just my $.02
Question (Score:5, Insightful)
For example. "Bill Gates noted closed source zealot and pro-monopolist met with shareholders today."
Hmm, doesn't seem right does it? Leave the defamation to commenters, we do a plently well on our own thanks.
RMS should be revered (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS is pedantic, painfully self-righteous, and needs a shave. But he is one of the greatest thinkers of our time, a genius, and a mind to be treasured and revered.
As a programmer and the developer of many free applications, RMS is for me a hero, someone who has anticipated many of the problems I would face in protecting the viability of my work.
He once refused to accept a t-shirt with our team's logo on it, but he's a great man nonetheless.
Re:RMS disses Debian? (Score:5, Insightful)
You completely miss the RMS's point, and the difference between FREE and OPEN. (This is of course a simplification.)
RMS's stanbd point is that non-free software is inherently a bad thing; doesn't matter if it's "superior" in terms of functionality or quality - it's inherently a bad thing.
Open software says Open software will, inherently, evolve into the best software - lowest bugs, best functionality etc etc - but whilst there is better non-Open software it's ok to use until Open catches up.
That difference in view point is something very few people, it seems, who ramble on the subject and about RMS, understand.
RMS has always, and I suspect always will be, completely consistent in his view point. The only variable has been peoples (lack) of understanding that RMS/FSF != Open software. Edward
Re:Does this guy ever shut up!? (Score:2, Insightful)
This guy is a real bad-ass programmer. He wrote Emacs and GCC, among other things. I would say those programs have stood the test of time and now are critical to the productivity of developers (yes, many use vi, but many use Emacs). How much less free/opensource software would there be today without those two programs?
For that matter, how much less software overall would there be without gcc and Emacs? I used to work at a proprietary software company and all of our Solaris and Linux development were done with gcc, gdb, Emacs, gprof, bash, perl...
Free is... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with that, of course, is that GPL'd software isn't really free (as in speech). It's just a different set of requirements governing distribution and modification, and it relies just as much on copyright law for protection as any closed source, commercial product.
If some code were completely free, then anyone could take it, compile it, change it, give away the results in any form they wanted, incorporate into a paid-for product with or without the source, or otherwise do as they wished.
The GPL is a great way for people with a shared philosophy to gain mutual benefit from their labours. I have absolutely nothing against that, or their right to protect their agreement via the legal system should that become necessary. If they produce software that is better than commercial alternatives, and choose to give it away, good for them. If not, well, we users can always choose to spend our money buying an alternative we prefer.
But please, calling this "free software" is just as much a misleading propaganda term as calling copyright infringement "intellectual property theft". It's about time a better term was coined.
RMS's political rants (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. I think RMS would call me apolitical because my primary reason for being involved in open source is that I think it is a better development model. However, there is a deeply political side of me that has a vision and political agenda behind my support of open source. It is in no way as one-sided or as focused as RMS, but I can see where he is coming from.
IMO, I think that the real battle of our lifetime is the battle over proprietary vs open systems and information. This goes beyond computing and affects everything from our food supplies to our software. The problems include companies such as Microsoft holding the rights to the filesystems that are the lifeblood of companies and companies such as Monsanto holding the patent rights to foods which could become the lifeblood of countries. It is also about the CTEA and fighting against perpetual copyright of our cultural icons.
The thing is, though, copyright has its place if it is not overextended. And I am so confident in this that I don't even care that much whether a distro recommends non-free packages. As long as customers start to see the difference. That is important. In fact, it is GOOD IMO, that Mandrake, RedHat, etc. offer commercial software with their distros because it shows the contrast and can help people see why free software is important. On this point, I disagree with RMS.
Re:zealot? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't agree with the FSF on a number of points. I take exception, however, at the unwarranted insults I've seen directed at them. Especially since the majority of the hecklers I've seen here on Slashdot have never contributed a line of open-source code in their lives.
Re:su with wheel group (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dying of math and graphics (Score:3, Insightful)
This might help: your thinking may be free within a system, but your still bounded by that system.
You may view your thinking within Lightwave as free, but only as far as Lightwave will allow you to go. You own the Lightwave software, but who controls the Lightwave software? Beyond what has been built into the software, you have no control. So now your used to the Lightwave program, price goes up, what do you do? Go find another proprietary software package or pay up? Either way, your options have been limited severly. You may never understand RMS, but don't criticize one who fights to break down barriers for all of us.
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I can tell, RMS sees these things in terms of abstract principles, whereas Debian sees them as guarantees that it can offer its users and society at large. Hence RMS comes off sounding "religious" to some, while Debian hies to a document it calls its "Social Contract".
Because it's in the business of offering assurance to its users that they will be able to redistribute and modify the packaged software, Debian has to be exceedingly careful of license conflicts and the like. They took a good deal of heat for excluding KDE until Qt's license ceased to conflict with the GPL. (It's a myth, by the way, that Debian demanded Qt be GPLed. In fact, the problem was that while KDE components were GPLed and Qt's license was also Free, Qt's license and the GPL on KDE could not be simultaneously satisfied.)
The difficulry arises with the GNU FDL because people can add sections called "Invariant Sections" to covered documents. These are portions excluded from the freedom of the license -- portions which future maintainers may not modify. Debian guarantees that the materials you get from its mainline distribution are things you may modify, so obviously Debian can't include FDL Invariant Sections in its mainline distribution.
It isn't a matter of fanaticism, advocacy, or holiness. It's a matter of plain and simple contradiction: Debian can't give something away as freely modifiable software if its license says it isn't -- and an FDL Invariant Section is no more freely modifiable than is Microsoft Word.
If someone says, "I'm making a CD of software that's all BSD-licensed," then obviously they aren't going to include gcc in it. Calling them fanatical or "holier-than-thou" for simply keeping their word, makes you seem to be fanatically advocating hypocrisy and deceit.
"Freedom" and "freedom" (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual interview is already slashdotted, but from the discussion it seems that he reserves his endorsement for the "GNU/Linex [linex.org]" distribution (Linex's site also seems to be down at the moment -- collateral slashdotting?), because it doesn't even provide the option of installing "non-Free" packages. This is just nuts -- it's clear to me why RMS uses the word "Free" instead of "free" at this point: because the meaning of "Free" (and I defy anyone to give a consistent definition of the way that RMS uses the term, aside from "Whatever RMS thinks it should mean at the moment") has shifted so far from what any reasonable person would expect the word "free" to mean.
(As an aside it's funny to see people denouncing michael for describing RMS as a zealot. For goodness sake FSF-guys, michael is on your side. That kinda attitude doesn't bode well for how this comment will be moderated, I suspect.)
Re:At least RMS is consistent (Score:3, Insightful)
One man's nutcase is history's next great thinker.
RMS and the Vampires (Score:5, Insightful)
No ethical compromise is possible with such a thing - some evil is all evil - that's why he won't support even "conveniance" non-free software or those that associate with it.
I see his point but I still don't know where I, as a programmer, am supposed to earn my mortgage payments. Telling me to become a marketing droid is not a reasonable answer.
TWW
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:5, Insightful)
Where did he say it was not recommended? Come on people, quit trying to manufacture flame wars. He said he ran Debian on his laptop, for christs sake.
He recommends the Extremadura distribution because it has no unfree software at all. He didn't say don't use Debian, he said it was the best commonly used distribution, but as 'Mr Free Software' of course he has to prefer the only distribution with absolutely no unfree software in it, now that it exists.
*ahem* (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a good thing I know how to use Maya and 3D Studio Max, then.
So now your used to the Lightwave program, price goes up, what do you do? Go find another proprietary software package or pay up?
I may switch, I may buy the newest version. Depends on what the exact circumstances are, but get this -- neither option is revolting to me.
This may be difficult to understand, but I have no desire to code my own graphics or mathematics site of applications. Nor do I wish to spend time manually adding features to what I already use. With respect to such programs, I am an end user; I am willing to learn the most popular software tools in my field -- there are several different non-free programs out there that I can learn and develop a wide range of skills with. And guess what? They're actually good enough for their intended purpose.
When was the last time you heard someone complaining about Maya's or Mathcad's lack of features? Or them hindering productivity? You don't hear such complaints because the programs, while proprietary and non-free, are (1) fantastic at what they do and (2) if one weren't to someone's taste, there are plenty of other choices. Don't like Mathcad? Try Maple, Mathematica, MATLAB. You'll have to pay, but there's a reason those programs are priced as they are -- they work well, they took effort, and they're the best.
Re:zealot? (Score:5, Insightful)
He believes in ideals to the point that they become inapplicable to the real world, and so becomes as limiting as the commercial world he so despises. That's the reason some people tend to dislike what he has to say, because of its fundamental contradictory nature. He preaches against limitation and yet imposes it.
Mutual Defense Clause? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Free is... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your definition of 'free': "anyone could take it, compile it, change it, give away the results in any form they wanted, incorporate into a paid-for product with or without the source, or otherwise do as they wished." maximizes freedom for yourself. I think personal freedom is necessary in a free society.
The 'free' that RMS believes in maximizes freedom for all, not just you. Here's how:
In essence, the GPL is a legal hack of the copyright system in order for it to behave closer to the perfect world RMS has in mind.
Daniel Quinn's book Ishmael suggests that modern man has lived a simple agrarian lifestyle for 100,000 years. He states that "Civilization" really got started around 10,000 years ago when somebody got the idea that you can control people by locking up the food. RMS made it his life's work to make sure this doesn't happen in the information age.
Re:RMS's political rants (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, he's not building his own empire, he's demolishing the comercial software empire, the means of doing which you seem to see as an 'empire.'
Re:zealot? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. You must become a programmer first before you get that special "Critical Guy" ID card that lets you interject your opinion about the operating system you use on your own computer. Linux and anything involved is only for programmers, and only they are allowed to discuss and decide its future. All matters are only open to a small cross-section of the community.
Come on, that's silly.
Re:zealot? (Score:5, Insightful)
the news, it appears to me that, in the long run, RMS is correct more often than
his hecklers.
Seriously, who thinks that OSS would be in a stronger position now if the GPL
had never been written?
Re:Someone's missing the point, but not us... (Score:5, Insightful)
<br><br>
Then you see no reason to agree with him at all. You don't truly agree if you're only compelled by the practical benefits. You should look at their arguments and ask yourself whether or not you think that non-free software is truly unethical. If not, you're in the open source camp.
Re:Check the definition of freedom. (Score:3, Insightful)
But the GPL does compel me to behave in certain ways if I use the "free" code. That's my point. As your dictionary definition suggests, free implies a lack of compulsion, and yet this "free" code carries extra requirements with it.
He may not care (Score:5, Insightful)
The free software movement is like a group of people who decided to become vegetarian out of ethical concerns about animal rights. Not everybody thinks like them and they're practical enough to understand that. But suppose a Free Vegetable Movement starts a foundation to make vegetarian utensils, publish vegetarian cookbooks and so forth, and get a lot of followers. If non-vegetarians now start also using the recipes, that's fine with them. There's even a splinter "open vegetable movement" of people who don't care about the animal rights issues but have discovered the benefits of eating more vegetables (such as having fewer heart attacks). The OVM may have mixed meat/vegetable diets but the FVM doesn't want to have anything to do with that.
What's happening in these threads sounds to me like non-vegetarians somehow claiming the vegetarian foundation is foolishly restricting people's options because it won't link to restaurants that serve meat dishes, and no longer recommends a particular cookbook with good vegetarian recipes, because that cookbook also has meat dishes and there's now finally a comparably good cookbook which is 100% vegetarian. IMO it would be crazy for the veg foundation to do anything else, given its values. All you can decide is that its values are not your values. Asking them to turn against their very principles by also presenting the "meat option" is ridiculous (do you also ask your xtian church to present the "satan option"?). They did a lot of work making their cookbooks and recipes what they are, and the changes you're asking for show that you're trying to impose your values on them, not the other way around.
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:0, Insightful)
So it would seem. Anyone that suggests that "non-free" software is "predatory social system that keeps people in a state of domination and division" needs a clue. It's not the cost of the software that keeps people in a state of domination or division. It's the companies or organizations that are responsible for the software, regardless of whether or not they charge.
For example, Linux is free but there is more division in the Linux community than there is with Windows. The freedom and free cost of Linux leads to division in the form of different distributions and different GUIs.
Windows costs money and there is much less division since what Microsoft says is law. But, obviously, they dominate the market.
These people that believe that ALL commercial software should disappear and everything should be free need a clue. Open source and free is great for many projects and not applicable to others. Linux zealots (and I am a very happy Linux user myself) need to realize that commercial software is a part of reality and will continue to be a part of reality. It's great that a lot of software is free and open source--especially the operating system itself--but as long as Linux zealots bash commercial software you'll find very little commercial software for Linux... and those that need that commercial software will have to choice but to stick with Windows.
We must welcome both commercial and free software, both closed-source and open-source for Linux.
Re:Free is... what? (Score:3, Insightful)
All those freedoms are provided by the BSD license. It's even more free because it doesn't require you to open source your code in certain circumstances. It's true that the GPL is more free than copyrighted code without a license and you may certainly use the name "More free than copyrighted software without license". However, to qualify for "Free Software", you should be able to argue that the license is the most free of them all. Usually, GPL advocates come up with the argument that GPL software will stay free forever, which will not happen with BSD software (in other words, the GPL'ed code is less free over a much longer period of time). I have argued against that argument here [slashdot.org].
BTW, I find it amazing that someone with such a primitive argument is modded up so highly.
Daniel Quinn's book Ishmael suggests that modern man has lived a simple agrarian lifestyle for 100,000 years. He states that "Civilization" really got started around 10,000 years ago when somebody got the idea that you can control people by locking up the food.
I think that civilization was caused by specialization (which greatly increased efficiency). To get what you want, trade became necessary. Trade is facilitated by currency, rules and arbiters. A government (tribal or more complex) is helpful there. Of course, once you specialize further, you need to trade with more people. So you get traders to haul and store goods (a new specialization), a bigger and more central government, a more standardized currency. Repeat ad nauseam and you get an advanced civilization.
How does this involve locking up food to control people? Or do you mean that a person couldn't just take someone else's crop? Was that a mistake? Why? What alternative do you propose?
RMS made it his life's work to make sure this doesn't happen in the information age.
He doesn't want civilization in the information age? At least, that's logical conclusion of your argument: locking something up caused civilization to happen and RMS wants to make sure that something similar doesn't happen again.
RMS is a practical man (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the world of software today and trace how much impact he has had. Emacs, gcc, gdb. The GPL. The idea that people can give away what they want, and other people (or the same people) can charge money for making distros and providing support.
Entire companies operate now in the intellectual eco-sphere that Stallman invented.
To be sure, several other people have also had an impact bigger than Stallman's. So what? Out of the millions of people who have spent their careers working with computers, he's easily in the top 0.1% of impact -- of people who made the world more like the way they want it.
That's practical.
Re:RMS should be revered (Score:5, Insightful)
RMS is a lot like what the Founding Fathers of the USA must have been like twenty or thirty years after things got running. He is worthy of respect in many of his actions and intentions. He clearly had the skills, intelligence, and drive to breath life into his beliefs, many of which the majority of us have at least some level of agreement. But this doesn't mean he's perfect. We can admire Jefferson's brilliance while shaking our heads at his ownership of slaves.
Another analogy I think is useful (if I can be allowed to pigeon-hole him some more), is Sigmund Freud. Freud is respected in psychology for what he was: a brilliant man who moved things forward a great deal. And, similarly to Freud, we can look at the contributions RMS has made with gratitude without believing he is right about everything. No one today really believes that Freud's theories were totally accurate models of reality. But many of the concepts and methods he introduced still have relevance and utility today.
Finally, for those role-playing geeks out there, I have one more analogy: Gary Gygax. He deserves respect for what he did for the genre, but will fall well short of any expectations placed upon him by those experiencing the emotion of "reverence".
It is very tempting to state the RMS, or anyone, is either "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong". The reality is that he is a complex person with ideas with which not all of us agree. That doesn't mean we can't look up to him for what good he has done, but to proceed beyond this to "reverence" would be a form of hero worship that would only cloud one's ability to evaluate his statements today.
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:zealot? (Score:2, Insightful)
What of Interoperability? (Score:5, Insightful)
In all seriousness, I think RMS has a good concept. Free software is a great idea. However, implementing free software would require changing the thoughts of every person in the entire world so they see that free software is a good thing. Take the following, for example:
TRB: One difficult thing for end users is proprietary codecs and plugins. Two examples that seem especially prevalent are Macromedia Flash and Real Networks' RealMedia files. Without these technologies, a lot of interesting content becomes unavailable. What do you think the short-term solution for this problem is?
RMS: I think we should modify browsers to encourage and help users to send messages of complaint to those sites, to pressure them to change.
Why? Media-types think flash and real media are a great technology. RMS is suggesting taking a step backward through this suggestion. What purpose could it possibly serve? Unless you can change the mindset of the folk at Real and Macromedia, you're stuck. Comply and remain interoperable or just don't view it.
By this same argument, folk should quit using Quicktime, WMV and WMA. Does anyone see thing happening anytime soon? I think not. People will go where their technology takes them, be it a Mac, Windows, *nix or *BSD user.
The key, at this point, isn't to subjugate the masses and foisting Linux on them. It's to make Linux interoperable with the other operating systems first. After Linux has gained, say, 50% of the market, then Linux can make demands. As it stands, if every Linux user were to send a letter of complaint to every site that used Flash, RealMedia, Quicktime or WM*s, people will probably more or less laugh. What purpose does it serve to suggest alternatives when there is no reason for said people to switch?
Linux is great. But it isn't so great that it will inspire change in the mind of everyone in the world. At least, not yet. ;)
Re:RMS is a practical man (Score:5, Insightful)
> bigger than Stallman's
It's also worth noting how unlikely Stallman was.
Bill Gates has had a bigger influence on the world, but anyone could have predicted him. If he was never born, there would be someone else in his place.
Would there be another RMS if this RMS was never born?
His biography is really interesting, and of course it is Free. (www.faifzilla.org)
Ciaran O'Riordan
Re:At least RMS is consistent (Score:2, Insightful)
You also need to add people like Mao, Lenin, Hitler, Torquemada, Atilla, Genghis Khan, and the like to your list. Just because a person "fought like hell for their beliefs" does not justify their beliefs.
One man's hero is history's next great evil.
Re:su with wheel group (Score:1, Insightful)
RMS is a theoreticist, not a nutcase. From a theoretical standpoint, freedom and security don't mix very well. From this standpoint, what you're saying is: if you support freedom, you should support my freedom to limit other people's liberties. Allmost all people who call RMS a nutcase are pragmatists, generally because the essence of his arguments is we shouldn't apply business ethics to the world of ideas, which is often a direct threat to their way of life.
The theoreticist argues that once you allow some kind of thought to be sold like physical goods, you have either outlawed the spontanious reoccurrence of these or similar thoughts in other minds or at least you have outlawed the free expression of these thoughts. He further argues that by making knowledge property you hamper the advancement of science and as a consequence the advancement of humanity. Not very practical arguments, but valid and not shithouse rat crazy.
On a lighter note, if you concider him strange think of him as some kind of Vulcan. What he does and says is almost always logical an consistent to his philosophy. He's also a terrible nitpicker without intending to be arrogant, like mr. Spock, never tired of trying to teach us morons something. :)
Just a patern (Score:2, Insightful)
Given a random sample of Linux users you'll find a large number of people who have in fact contributed code. Rob Mulda who has admitted to being not the best programmer let alone one of the smarter Linux users has contributed code.
I've contributed code. A lot of people have.
So when a whole group of people in what is admittedly a very programmer orented community in some cases even hostile to non-programmers turns up a whole group of critics who can't code you get to wondering if they are part of the community at all.
The point being made here is that RMSes critics are on the outside they aren't involved and don't know much more than what they are told by individuals who are themselfs quite hostile to Linux. Often the very programmers RMS is critical of.
I'd be simpathetic but I've seen the code they write and I wrote better programms when I was a kid bored at the store with only a Vic20 on demo to keep me entetrained and I'd walk off with my game still running for other kids to play.
You'd be right if programmers were a rare commodity on the Linux community or if only a select few of the open source critics were non-programmers it would not make sense to doupt the critics. But the truth is most of the Linux community are active contributers and the critics aren't.
Like the comment "Don't be critical of Microsoft untill you've writen an os". You realise only a tiny handful of people have actually done that? I find it most telling that of those who have writen an operating system I'm probably the most forgiving of Microsoft.
(Yes.. I wrote an operating system all on my own and it sucked)
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess if your definition of power is that lame then OK. To me power is George Bush launching wave upon wave of airplanes dropping bombs on afghanistan and iraq. Power is Bill gates buying the govt of the US., Power is Dick Cheney making sure only Haliburton gets billion dollar contracts in Iraq.
Maybe RSM has more power then you but that's not much of an achievement is it? The fact is that he has no real power especially compared with his enemies. Compare the power of RMS with Bill gates or the Canopy group. His enemies have infinately more power then him.
Re:I don't care if he doesn't :-) (Score:4, Insightful)
You're not very creative (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, people buying servers want an OS they know they can get compatible software with, etc, etc (see the whole Oracle approved distro debacle). So they have an incentive to support (i.e. give money to) a popular distro (i.e. RedHat) so RedHat doesn't go tits up and leave them searching for something else.
And that doesn't even get into bundling proprietary software with the known free software.
So, basically you can make money selling something that's available for free by selling your brand. Sure, people could buy the systems bare and install software themselves, because it's free, but then IBM can just put support terms in their contract saying stuff like 'you need to have bought x.x version from us, or we laugh in your face', because they can make more money by selling a complete package.
It's all about branding and package, dude. Step into the new millenium. Just like it doesn't matter if you're a popular artist getting jacked by your record company, if you can sell your cool/sexy/creepy old man image to Pepsi. There is nothing left to sell except your own mark of quality and authenticity. Which can't be taken away from you even if people copy you/your software.
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because you hold the reins of the world doesn't mean you have the power to DO anything with it. Creativity and innovation will always triumph over sheer will to power, given enough time - precisely because they change the whole ballgame. What you're calling "power" is transient - the power to shape the destiny of the world is infinitely subtler.
RMS too much of a zealot? (Score:2, Insightful)
RMS is wrong: Extremadura LinEx *is* Debian (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm calling you out, Richard Stallman. You claim that the GNU project website will not link to the Debian project because the Debian project provides for the description and download of non-Free Software. Yet, you can recommend a Debian install?
Most certainly Extremadura Linux contains the standard dpkg/apt facilities. Just like with a standard Debian install, a user must explicitly specify that he or she would like access to the seperate repository which contains non-Free Software, in order to access these repositories with the apt system. This is done either at install (in the case of a standard Debian GNU/Linux install), or after install by modifying the
The default of a Debian GNU/Linux install is to provide for the installation of only software which is Free Software.
Extremadura GNU/Linux no doubt provides in its package management system to describe non-Free Software, and to provide for the download and installation of non-Free Software. These are the same reasons that you have stated you will not link to the Debian project from the GNU project website.
Mr. Stallman, how dare you take a stab like this at the Debian project.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, GNU without Linux can still run on three kernels!
Remove GNU from Linux and you don't have much left... Sure, you've got yourself a kernel, so what?
Re:Free of responsibility (Score:1, Insightful)
In our overly-litigious society, the risks of offering a warranty on software are huge so the prices are absurd. That's why almost all software is offered "as-is", whether free or proprietary.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
did I miss something? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:2, Insightful)
You are confusing commercial with proprietary. Software that is Free (as in Freedom) can be commercial.
Re:I just lost a lot of respect for him. (Score:5, Insightful)
but he runs Deb on his laptop because it was "the best at the time." what fucking bullshit. if it's so important to you, switch distros right-fucking-now.
Look I have more issues with RMS than most, but I think you are going one step too far. It's not like he would have anything from the debian release that is not free on his machine. It's like,... building a house, at the time you built it the company you bought the wood from sold both old growth and plantation wood products. They didn't actively promote old growth wood, but they would get it if a customer demanded that particular wood, so they were the best "ethical" provider available at the time. However you only used plantation wood products in your house so you complied with your ethics. And now, if you were building again, there is this new company that offers no old growth wood at all, so you could use them even more comfortably, indeed you might recommend them at the expense of the former company. The situation with Debian and LinEx seems the same to me so there is no reason to switch distros for him in order to remain consistent with his stated ethical position.
Earn a living the long honoured way. (Score:3, Insightful)
That is the way most programmers earn a living.
interesting comment. (Score:3, Insightful)
I most definetly think that in 10, 50, 100 years RMS will be viewed as one of the most influencial people of the late 20th century, and early 21st.
of coarse it depends who has control (or the power) over the 'ministries of truth' of the time.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
RMS, on the rocks ... (Score:4, Insightful)
GPL is minimum required complexity (Score:3, Insightful)
> people use what you produce
Allowing people to use what you produce is simple, protecting your freedom and preserving it for others is the hard task that the GPL trys to solve.
The jungle is "freeer" than the city because I have the freedom to kill. In a society, we trade certain freedoms for other benefits, we trade the freedom to kill for the benefit of a safer living environment. When a freedom is of little use to use, we will trade it lightly.
The GPL restricts people from making proprietary versions. Since making proprietary versions is not important to free software developers, most choose to trade this freedom for the benefit of preserving the freedom of the code they release.
This is the basis of copyleft. The GNU GPL is the cornerstone of the GNU project. The success of the GNU project shows how solid it is.
> The whole point of it is the infectiousness
The GNU GPL is a sharing agreement. "Here's 7.8billion lines of code, you can use it if you like but you have to share any relevent parts of your code". No one gets sent to Guantanamo bay for saying No.
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at his responses to the MandrakeSoft and TrollTech questions. He's not just okay with, but happy with, their selling of software. As long as they don't sell software that locks people into a proprietary solution, there's no harm in it. If you want to spend your money on software, you're welcome to it. He just wants a world where you can never be required to do so, just to interoperate with someone else.
He may hold himself to different standards, such as never buying even open sourced commercial software, but that's a far cry from hating and trying to abolish it.
As far as other rewards go, I'd love to be able to legally play DVDs in Linux. The law doesn't stop me from doing it for myself, but it does make it potentially illegal for me to sell Linux systems pre-configured to play DVDs. In RMS's ideal world that would never happen, which makes me thing it's not a bad ideal.
Re:Debian not recommended (Score:3, Insightful)
As for the link issue, he simply seemed to be mis-spoken. It's not that the FSF doesn't link to Debian (and many other projects), it's that they don't endorse Debian. They aren't saying on the front page that "Debian is everything that the Free Software Foundation wants in a Linux distro."
I don't really see anything contradictory about what RMS does. He avoids non-free software, he encourages others to do the same, and he supports those who do the best job of it.